Sources have informed CNBC-TV18 that DoT has written to BlackBerry service operators citing security concerns. Service providers will have to confirm monitoring facility for lawful intervention, added sources.

Tata Tele’s application to offer BlackBerry services was rejected by the Home Ministry.

According to sources, existing service providers will meet the Telecom Secretary next week. Existing service providers will reply to the Home Ministry concerns in 4-6 weeks

Users of the popular BlackBerry mobile e-mail service could possibly be facing a blackout if the Home Ministry has its way. It seems to have started with Tata Tele's application, to offer the BlackBerry service, being rejected on security grounds by the Home Ministry.

It is too early to say whether a blackout is imminent. Tata Teleservices applied through DoT, seeking permission before it launched the BlackBerry service. It claims this is something that most other operators haven’t bothered to do so far.

There are 4-5 service providers offering BlackBerry service.

Post that, the DoT forwarded that request to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Ministry of Home Affairs rejected that on security grounds. It cited the fact that there is a case of lawful interception. Unless that issue is cleared, the Ministry of Home Affairs is not okay with Tata Teleservices offering BlackBerry service. This is not an operator-centric problem, but a technology-centric problem.

As a result, the DoT has now written a letter to all service providers, offering BlackBerry service, seeking an explanation. The key point the DoT wants to find out is whether they want the operators to confirm whether there is a monitoring facility, which will exist for lawful interception. DoT wants to know if there is any data that is being transferred. At any given point of time, the Ministry of Home Affairs should be in a position to intercept that piece of data. That is the concern with security agencies, which has now been forwarded by DoT to service providers.

Service providers said that at this point in time, they have not been told by DoT to stop offering services. There are about half a million BlackBerry users in this country and it would be a huge blow to them.

What are service providers saying?

They are saying that BlackBerry works on a server. So, depending on what operator you have, whether it is Airtel, Hutch or Reliance, that server can be intercepted by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The counterargument from the Ministry of Home Affairs is that from one server to another, the data is first encrypted in one server and then decrypted in another server.

The only problem lies in breaking the encrypted information. So, once that information gets encrypted, the security agencies feel that they will not be able to break that particular piece of information.

Sources said that all service providers are now going to be meeting the Telecom Secretary S Behura some time next week. They have been given about 4-6 weeks time by the Ministry of Home Affairs to formulate their response and get back to them.

Next week’s meeting could be very crucial and will give an indication as to which way things are headed. The government cannot act in haste. From the kind of third party rights that have been created, there are 0.5 million users in this country. It is going to be very difficult for the government to sit back and take a call and say that it is too late to be offering BlackBerry service.

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